KABUL, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan government has increased air strikes against armed groups' oppositions and 37 militants have been killed since Saturday, officials said Monday.
In the latest air strikes against anti-government militants, the government forces' warplanes targeted a Taliban hideout in Sangar village of Alinegar district of the eastern Laghman province in the wee hours of Monday, killing eight armed insurgents and injuring three others, the 0Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Similarly, the government forces' aircraft including helicopter gunships struck Taliban hideouts in the northern Badakhshan, Faryab and Sari Pul provinces on the same day Monday, killing 12 rebels, according to Nasratullah Jamshidi, an army spokesman in the northern region.
A day earlier on Sunday, the Afghan air force pounded militants' bastion in Taliban-controlled Wardoj district of Badakhshan province, killing eight fighters and injuring few others.
Jamshidi also said that the security forces aircraft would continue to bomb the enemies positions elsewhere in the conflict-hit country.
Afghan military aircrafts had also attacked the hideouts of Islamic State (IS) group in Achin district of the eastern Nangarhar province on Saturday and killed nine insurgents, according to provincial officials.
Intensive air strikes came amid increasing number of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan since the White House announced a new strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia unveiled in last August.
Local observers believe that boosting airpower and using it against militants could change the war front in favor of the Afghan government forces.
Afghan Defense Ministry Spokesman General Dawlat Waziri said that crackdown against militants backed by airpower would increase in winter to weaken militants' abilities ahead of spring and summer known as fighting season in Afghanistan.
